Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Found some great presentations from Slideshare about topics I have post before. Source is the SlideShare account of the Georgia National Guard. Tactical guides of Twitter, blogging, Facebook, social media, Flickr and Youtube.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Welcome to the Slideshare where you can upload your presentations (powerpoint example), documents and videos. There are also other features like finding good information from different topics, make Slidecasts (presentation with audio) and Zipcast (live presentation of slideshow).

I use Slideshare finding quick information from new topics and also new presentations on social media. I also follow some top names on Slideshare and embed presentation to my blog. You can make different kind of searches from presentations like most views, latest and favored, most downloads, browse by category and filter by type (presentations, documents, slidecasts, videos.

Part I tutorials presents basic use of Slideshare, Part II show how to make Slidecasts and Part III presents Zipcast in action.

Monday, June 20, 2011

This post presents Google Docs use in the Classroom. Google Docs is excellent collaboration tool for teachers, school development and classroom use. Basicly its about collaborative planning and writing, sharing information, working simultaneously with other students or teachers, and in my opinion it should be used on every school.

I use Google Docs nowdays in writing project plans when network of schools apply funding for projects. We use Facebook closed groups organizationand innovating the creative writing process and then write whole application in Google. Some of our student use it in planning school projects. Lets take Google Docs in everyday use in schools. First there is a tutorial from Josh Stumpenhorst how to use Google Docs. There are also lots of examples Google Docs in classroom.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

﻿﻿﻿This post presents basic use of Flickr and some practical ideas for use of Flickr in classroom. I use Flickr in mainly two ways, first saving my family pictures safe place and keep them private and second find free Creative commons pictures for my presentations with students or other teachers. More information on creativecommons.org. You can also share your pictures, join groups, collaborate with other users. This photo found in creative commons search: Kids in school / classroom. Link:School children at a floating primary school

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School children at a floating primary school, Prek Toal Wildlife Sanctuary. Picture by Tajai

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If you havent sign in yet, take a tour in Flickr and see what is going on there. First two tutorials presents basic use of Flickr and the rest gives ideas how to use Flickr in classroom.

Better lines and arrows, image cropping

You can use arrows and lines to make your prezi story easier to follow. Based on your feedback, we have updated this feature. How to draw straight lines, resize and bend lines and arrows:1. Draw a line or arrow and double-click it.2. Drag the control points on one of the edges to resize length / move edges on the canvas3. Drag the control point at the center of a line or arrow to bend it4. Set the thickness of lines or arrows using the Zebra’s middle ringAlso, you can save a lot of time by cropping your images right in prezi without using any third party editors to set up your photos before loading them to your prezi. How to crop images:1. Double-click on an image to see the four control points.2. Drag control points to select the part of the image you want to keep.3. Hit Enter or ESC to crop the image; or, click anywhere outside of the image to crop.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

In my first posts I present some ideas Twitter in Classroom part 1 and part 2 and also Facebook in Classroom. Since then many new updates has been published. But first you have good possibility to enjoy and relax by listening lecture, slidecast on Facebook Strategies for the Classroom by Kevin Lim. Lasting hour and 56 minutes! If you are busy as they say in these days, there is Youtube video Twitter in 60 seconds.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Diigo is good tool also in classroom. Theacher can use problem based learning metodhs - students can decide their research problem and find individual and collaborative information. Also Diigo is good tool for all kinds of projects to find reliable information. In first video tutorial you find examples of teaching literature with help of Diigo.

Second example is a great speech from Elisabeth Crispino using Diigo with 5. graders

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

After using actively Facebook and especially Twitter with TweetDeck I had huge collection of great education technology links in my Twitter favorites-file. Problem was that it was impossible to find any specific topic or link. Then I found Diigo and my over thousand links transferred to my Diigo-library. That was the beginning of my social bookmarking career.

Social bookmarking is about to save, store,share and group bookmarks on the Internet online. There are many others like Diigo, example Delicious. But I use Diigo, so today I present some fantastic possibilities what Diigo offers. To teachers who dont want to use Facebook or Twitter and be in social networks, Diigo give tools to get information from whole Diigo community anonymously. There are also networking possibilities, but its up to you, share or not. I use Diigo mostly when I need to find new information, save my Twitter favorites. Best thing is, that my links are always with me. There are many other ways, example using in research, find information on topics from other users, make research groups from same topics, bookmark web pages online.

I share this topic to posts. In this post I present through tutorial how to use Diigo effectively. Next post presents different ways how to use Diigo in education and classroom.

This first tutorial Social Bookmarking: Making the Web Work for You opens up concept of sosial bookmarking and use of Diigo

Thursday, June 2, 2011

In Voionmaa upper secondary school are 540 students and most of them are athletics or really active in sports. Because of large interest in sports and health, there are influence our marketing and branding school.

What makes Facebook so good communication tool in school community?Almost every student has a profile, in our school about 95% use it. Its easy way to share comments, pictures and videos - just what students like. Their also want be part of communities and because school is so big part of their life, school community in Facebook really works even among former students.

Our most used marketing channel is Facebook together with our website. We have simple marketing principles: In marketing terms our Product isquality general education; Extra services – what more you get – friendship, community of student, who are active in athletics, interested in health, active learning projects; Image We provide student an active, sporty community, where students feel safe to learn and meet friends in good atmosphere– new students become a membership of Voionmaa School Tribe.

We are documenting all the events in pictures and videos to our website and Facebook. There are also principles of documentation:Entertainment- for your senses, Esthetic(visual look), Educational (learning is also fun, student can participate), Escapism– moment away from reality, experiences of participation. Wy try to link all those elements on documentations. We make 2-4 new videos from our school with MovieMaker and use lot of mobile videos. Our Head engineer:) Jarkko Sairanen is also in Twitter. Here is one presentation video from Voionmaan upper secondary school. with translation.Welcome to Voionmaa upper secondary school, next year you are studying somewhere. How do feel studying school,where basic teaching is good, but there is something else going on. . .There is chance for sports training for everyone, training places are beside the school, studying with project based learning, teachers are challenged involved projects, you are most welcome here, to Voionmaa

Using Facebook for marketing events

Voionmaan upper secondary school Big High SchoolUnion held in December 2010. We wanted to get together our current and former students which are in our Facebook community. One important motive was also strengthen the whole Facebook community face-to-face event. Our primary target were old students last 10 period.

We used all kind of promotions, but the effective one was videos of teachers, made by teachers. Also old students made their on videos and invate their own class to join. All videos were shoot by mobile, easy and quick and impression of reality. Teacher-videos connect their experience, old memories of favorite teachers, the good high school times (dont we all miss it:). There were about 20 teacher videos and all had same message in different personal ways - come and meet old students and teachers once again in 17.12. 2010.

Here is one example from our sport and health science teacher - we have great hockeyplayers in our school. Quick translation: "ok, former and current students, its a game day, celebration day 17.12., it doesnt matter, are you coming through center, or sides, be brave, come straigt to goal area, in 17.12.Mobile promotion video from our teacher Mika Lievonen. Another seconds from our former students, gymnactics group called Akrobatmanboys, who were also perfom in event. Translation: "Do you want to see more, see you in 17.12. Gymnastics mobile video

We had 400 old students Big High SchoolUnion and feedback was really positive, their honered the community memory and membership We also made the deal, that their would come when needed to tell about their studies and professions in our councellor club almost held in every week. We published some after event videos and here is one minute from Acrobatmanboys performing (total gymnastic presentation was 25 minutes) Acrobatmanboys

For teacher working with Facebook in school community is emotional and fun, rewarding to show all kind of talents students have, different from normal work and its just so esthetic to document a life of enthusiastic young learners.